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It has been claimed that secret meetings of the Cobra emergency committee are being held to prepare for the UK crashing out of the EU.

Usually Cobra – which stands for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, where the group meets – is only convened in response to events that threaten national security like natural disasters or terrorist attacks.

Labour’s Anna McMorrin said the Cabinet Office was preparing for the “very real threat” of no deal by undertaking civil contingency planning and holding the meetings.

De facto deputy prime minister David Lidington did not deny the claim, saying it was right that the civil contingency secretariat plays an “active part in contingency planning for all eventualities”.

Ms McMorrin (Cardiff North) asked the Cabinet Office minister during departmental questions in the Commons: “We know the Cabinet Office is preparing for the very real threat that is no deal, with secret Cobra meetings and civil contingency planning.

“Business leaders are warning of the disaster of a no deal or a bad deal. Isn’t it about time we put this decision, the biggest facing our generation, back to the people for a people’s vote?”

Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

IFTFY: Theresa May warns EU she is still a ‘bloody stupid woman’ over Brexit

Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

But being difficult doesn't resolve the many difficult problems she has created for herself, does it, coffee?

Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

That's hilarious, coffee. barcodes. The solution to all the Irish border problems (for there are more than one) is barcodes. Barcodes...

Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

Battle lines over the Irish “backstop” have been well and truly drawn between Theresa May and Boris Johnson today, with the EU getting stuck in for good measure. The problem is everyone’s “solutions” have flaws and none look likely to be accepted by all sides.

Frustrated by Theresa May’s failure to come up with a better idea than her unworkable Chequers proposal, the EU has devised its own compromise aimed at “de-dramatising” customs checks between the EU and Northern Ireland, outlined in this FT report. This would trust UK officials - rather than the EU’s - to carry out checks on goods moving from British ports to Northern Ireland, deploying technology such as tracking with barcodes and signing companies up to “trusted trader” schemes.

But this is still in effect a customs border being erected in the Irish Sea, with a different customs regime between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK - albeit with checks happening in firms’ warehouses, at ports or on ferries. That’s exactly what the DUP, who prop up May’s government, say they cannot abide. It’ll take quite the feat of de-dramatisation to convince them.

Boris Johnson’s latest Telegraph column again attacks Chequers, and the Irish “backstop” in particular. Reading past the car-crash metaphors and pseudo-historical bombast about 1066, he makes the totally correct point that under Chequers the UK will become a “rules-taker”, because May wants a UK-wide approach for EU rules crucial to upholding the Good Friday peace settlement. The EU’s alternative, Johnson points out, amounts to “keeping Northern Ireland effectively in the EU” - something supporters of the union won’t like.

These realities won’t just bother the former foreign secretary. They will stick in the craw of patriotic pro-Europeans too. However, Johnson’s assertion that naive Brexiters such as himself were “taken in” by the December deal on Ireland, which he agreed to as a cabinet minister, is a bit rich. It looks more like he wasn’t on top of the detail and didn’t understand what he was signing up to at the time.

The other problem Johnson has is that his own solution - which involves checking goods away from the border - will not work. May was right when she told the BBC: “You don't solve the issue of no hard border by having a hard border 20km inside Ireland.” That’s still a hard border, with physical customs infrastructure - exactly what everyone has been trying to avoid to maintain Irish peace.

So, with no practical challengers, May feels understandably confident to say it’s either her deal or no deal. But of course there is a third way. Give the decision back to the UK public. Now they’ve seen the whole unworkable Brexit mess, and if they don’t want to choose between either being rule-taker or jeopardising peace in Ireland, they should be given the chance to say so with a People’s Vote.

There is actually a fourth Brexit option: the “Gove plan”. This is to reach a Chequers-style deal with the EU, kick out the prime minister, rip up her deal and go for an even harder Brexit. Michael Gove didn’t put it quite that bluntly. But the environment secretary did tell the BBC’s Andrew Marr yesterday that a future prime minister could choose to alter the relationship between the UK and the EU. He also damned Chequers with faint praise saying it was the right plan “for now”.

Gove’s comments underline the huge risk of a blindfold Brexit, where we quit the EU next year without any clarity over where we are going to end up and with the Conservative party still in civil war over our future. Keeping the population in the dark would be a democratic outrage. The alarm bells should ring particularly loudly in Northern Ireland. After all, if Theresa May agrees an Irish backstop and Gove then manages to rip up Chequers, the backstop will become the “frontstop” and all the flowery language about it never being used will be shown to be hot air.Tweet of the day 2

NHS staff turned out in London at the weekend to demand a People's Vote - because they know the damage Brexit can do to our health service. And if you've been fired up by our summer rallies, make sure you're in London on October 20 for the big one.

Today saw the Brexit spotlight swing back onto the transition period, remember that? In March the UK and EU agreed 21-months after Brexit to thrash out and sign off their future relationship. That’s just too short, argues the Institute for Government think tank. Compare it to other big projects: the automatic pension enrolment programme, preparations for the London Olympics (both over a decade); digitising tax (five years).

Theresa May is being dishonest on her transition timing, presumably in an effort to put her Brextremist backbenchers at ease that we won’t stay in transition forever. But if she refuses to get some flexibility from the EU now while we still have a bit of leverage, by December 2020 we’ll either be desperately pleading for a transition extension (likely with much money and rule-taking involved) or preparing to crash out with no deal at all. Avoiding such a short-sighted shambles is exactly why the people need a vote on her Brexit deal.Video of the day

WATCH: This week's FFS Awards from For our Future's Sake - a fun look back at all the Brexit buffoonery of the last seven days.

“The UK economy as a whole is set to grow at a snail's pace. Brexit uncertainty continues to weigh heavily on many firms, as most of the practical questions facing trading businesses remain unanswered.

"The drag effect on investment and trade would intensify in the event of a 'messy' and disorderly Brexit.”

Adam Marshall, director general of the British Chambers of CommerceMore Brexit news…

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

More than anything else, the EU referendum was fought on the issue of migration. It’s astonishing then that, six months before we’re due to Brexit, the UK public and businesses still have little idea what our migration policy will look like if we leave.

Today was meant to shed some light on the matter, with a report from the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) laying out the role of EU migration in the UK. Promised and delayed for months now, this document was expected to inform any future government policy.

It seems, however, like some ministers have made up their minds already. Home secretary Sajid Javid wants a “global” migration system where the same criteria are applied to EU citizens as are currently used for non-EU migration, according to reports in The Times. Theresa May hinted that she supports something along similar lines in an interview with the BBC, saying 2016 showed UK voters didn’t want to “see people coming from the EU having those automatic rights in terms of coming here to the UK, and a set of rules for people outside the European Union.”

It’s not clear whether Javid will get his way. But the MAC report is likely to highlight the downside of clamping down on EU migration. The work of EU citizens makes our economy hum: providing a reliable workforce for several industries; creating businesses and new jobs; and paying much more in taxes than they take out in welfare. Workers from further afield, with more immigration hoops to jump through, wouldn’t be able to fulfil the same role.

If Javid gets his way, we could also expect tit-for-tat retaliation from EU countries. That’s bad news for Brits who want to work abroad. Far from making Britain more “global”, a lot of people - especially young people - could see their horizons narrowed.

Such a narrowing of horizons is one reason young people support a People’s Vote in huge numbers. The National Society of Apprentices (NSOA) - representing 300,000 apprentices across all sectors and every part of the UK - has today joined forces with For our Future’s Sake (FFS) to campaign for a public vote on Brexit.

Young people who couldn’t vote in 2016 are overwhelmingly against Brexit and now much more engaged and likely to vote, according to new YouGov research. Polling also shows that - even if nobody changed their minds on Brexit - the demographic shift as young people reach voting age and older people pass away will make the UK an anti-Brexit country by January 2019, two months before we are due to leave.

This is the 100TH EDITION of the People's Vote Morning Briefing! A big thanks to all our readers for backing the campaign for a People's Vote. If you know someone who might also like to get the latest Brexit news in their inbox every morning, get them to sign up here.Video of the day

Our negotiating partners across Europe are becoming suspicious of the UK’s long-term commitment to any deal that is struck in the next few months, reports The Times. Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, is preparing to insist on “credible” assurances that any political declaration agreed with Theresa May also binds her successor, according to reports of a senior EU meeting last week.

The French president also wants to nail down the key terms of the future Brexit deal now, rather than allow any ambiguous drift on the major issues after 29 March 2019, according to the Guardian. EU diplomats apparently expect the UK government to experience its “darkest hour” and stare into the abyss of a no-deal Brexit before it agrees to what the EU wants.

Comments by Michael Gove over the weekend that a new prime minister could “always choose to alter the relationship between Britain and the European Union” will have done nothing to reassure our EU partners that we can be trusted. They also mean the British people cannot trust what the government is up to. As Nick Kent wrote for InFacts yesterday, they could make Parliament’s promised “meaningful” vote at the end of the Brexit talks meaningless, reinforcing the case for a People’s Vote.Quote of the day

“For the ‘true believers’ - the fundamentalists - the costs of Brexit have always been irrelevant. Years of economic pain justified by the erotic spasm of leaving the European Union. Economic pain felt - of course - not by them by those least able to afford it."

Jaguar Land Rover has moved staff at its Solihull plant to a three-day week, after a cut in production due to “headwinds impacting the car industry”, reports Sky. Brexit is the dominant factor here, alongside a fall in sales of diesel cars.

Local MP Jack Dromey blames the decision on “Brexit chaos”, saying “Brexit now threatens the jewel in the crown on British manufacturing excellence”. The more than 3,000 workers at the Castle Bromwich plant will retain pay and benefit levels during the scheduled cut, which begins in October. But big question marks remain over the UK’s car industry after Brexit.Tweet of the day

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

re racism and Brexit, the weird thing is that "real" racists, ie those who dislike dark-skinned people, presumably voted Leave, yet the result of Brexit is likely to be some degree of white non-Brits being replaced by non-whites in such as the NHS

animist wrote:re racism and Brexit, the weird thing is that "real" racists, ie those who dislike dark-skinned people, presumably voted Leave, yet the result of Brexit is likely to be some degree of white non-Brits being replaced by non-whites in such as the NHS

I don't think they've realised that yet...

Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

Please coffee. a long list of links to Tweets is not at all helpful. I'll leave them this time, but please do not do that again.

Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

Taxes will have to rise if Brexit brings strict curbs on EU workers because they pay far more to the public purse than British-born residents, a study warns today.

Migrants from the EU contribute £2,300 more to the exchequer each year in net terms than the average adult, the analysis for the government has found.

And, over their lifetimes, they pay in £78,000 more than they take out in public services and benefits - while the average UK citizen’s net lifetime contribution is zero.

Oxford Economics, which carried out the assessment, said this meant the value of EU citizens to the economy was the equivalent of slapping 5p on income tax rates.

“When it comes to the public finances, European migrants contribute substantially more than they cost, easing the tax burden on other taxpayers,” said Ian Mulheirn, the lead researcher.

Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

Alan H wrote:Please coffee. a long list of links to Tweets is not at all helpful. I'll leave them this time, but please do not do that again.

I will post a shorter list in the future.

A shorter list does not resolve the problem.

Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?